That Idea Is Craptastic! - Sometimes inspiration comes from the most unlikely sources. When Daria and Jane's brainstorming for the contest began, most of the ideas they came up with just plain stunk. Fly paper, the skin of a student- what were they thinking? It took a feeling of imminent puking to bring out the real idea. People can be so weird.

Parental Plus Points - Both Jake and Helen came through for Daria in this episode. Jake stood up to Helen for her with his seemingly poor placed example using penne pasta (What job was he fired from, anyway? All he ever seemed to do was read the paper.). Helen came through with her direct and quick deduction and explanation of what would happen if Daria was punished for destroying her poster.

Rehearsed Responses - Helen is the type to have everything planned out in advance, she's mechanical and rehearsed in a lot of her actions. This comes out in the first time she is called from Lawndale. For Quinn, she says to tell them the assignment will be in on Monday. For Daria, she wants to know whom she insulted and what she said. It wasn't as much what Helen said but how she said it.

Outside the System - If you can't get through an obstacle, remember that you can always go around it. Daria and Jane exhausted every official means they possibly could and still had no control over their own creation. The only recourse that they had was to mangle the painting so it couldn't be used. The only real surprise about it was that is was Jane's idea.

This episode gave us a somewhat standard "us against them" storyline but was done in a somewhat new situation. Miss Li couldn't be blamed for wanting to change the poster but her actions leave much to be desired. I liked this episode.